I'll start before you start rolling so you can just say stop. I wanted to start with the Kennedy period and ask you where Vietnam stood on ah...I'm sorry, I have to start again.

These are the questions for Elizabeth. Ah. (clearing throat) and ask you where the...where Vietnam stood in ah Kennedy's list of priorities early in his administration. And, you can just start off with the answers. Face the camera.

Any time.

Well, the ah, it didn't stand very high. The emphasis was much ah...

Excuse me.

Ya.

Could you incorporate the...

Oh, I see. Okay. Fine. When President Kennedy came to, to office the emphasis was much more on Laos than on Vietnam. In part, this resulted from the fact that, I think, the day before the inauguration ah he had, Kennedy had had a talk with Eisenhower, and Eisenhower had put enormous emphasis on Laos, telling him that this was critical to the, the ah security of ah Southeast Asia and that, if necessary, we might be obliged to put troops in Laos. It was that important.

So that for the, the early months of the Kennedy administration, there was an enormous lot of concentration on the problem of Laos and what we should do about it and there were suggestions of investment of troops and so on.

I think finally, Kennedy very wisely decided that ah Laos wasn't worth the investment of troops that ah we should seek some solution through neutralization by an agreement with the Soviets.

I want to jump now on to (clears throat) the period just after the Taylor-Rostow mission at the end of 1961. What was your own reaction to that mission?

Taylor-Rostow Mission concluded its visit and came back with a series of reports embodied, I think, in telegrams from Taylor to the President, which called for the, almost the open-ended ah commitment of Americans ah in various forms, but ah for primarily for, for rather passive duty in the first instance but with a recognition that ah in the end we might have to commit as many forces as up to I think the estimate was 206,000.

Ah, I was very disturbed by this. I ah, when Taylor came to make his report I talked in advance of the meeting with uh Bob McNamara and and Roswell Gilpatric who was the deputy secretary of defense at that time. I told him that I thought this was a very dangerous course to start down that ah it would lead to a po—potential investment of enormous numbers of American troops and that this was a, the worse possible terrain both political and physical in which to try to to ah in which American forces and prestige should be committed.

Ah. They were not impressed, and ah the ah it was clear to me that I was having no effect. So, a few days later, I think it was on about 7th or 8th of November or something like that I talked with President Kennedy directly and I told him very much the same thing. I thought that ah if we were to accept the recommendations of the Taylor-Rostow mission that this could have most tragic consequences, that the ah terrain was totally unsuitable for the commitment of American forces and ah that from a prestige point of view it was ah it was very dangerous for us to get in that position, that ah if we went down that road we might have within five years 300,000 men in the rice paddies of the jungles of Vietnam and that it was impossible terrain and we, we'd just never be able to find them.

And, ah, he, I rather annoyed ah ah President Kennedy who was almost always of very affable and quite willing to discuss something, but he just said ah, as I recall, well, George, ah, you're just crazier than hell. I always thought you were one of the brightest guys in town but you're, you're crazy. This isn't gonna happen. And, he was so emphatic about it, that I, I didn't pursue the subject anymore.

How would you assess the American responsibility for the coup of Dinh Diem?

Well, I don't think that the United States had very much responsibility. I think it was an indigenous ah Vietnamese affair. I know this is a view that ah that Cabot Lodge who was the ambassador there has expressed in my presence. Ah.

We had indicated in a telegram in August 24th or something of the sort, that ah ah we should get either Diem should get rid of coup ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, of Nhu, his brother in law. Ah. Or, we would find the situation impossible and that if some other initiative were taken ah we might feel obliged to support it. I don't remember the exact language but that's the general burden of the telegram. That was cleared with the President, I cleared it personally, who was then in Hyannisport. I cleared it with Rusk. McNamara was away.

Word came back from Gilpatric's farm and he was more or less in favor of it, if others wanted to go along, and ah, ah, it was cleared with John McCullen's deputy, as I recall. The telegram went out. Ah. It had no real effect. Nothing happened. The generals ah didn't have the courage to go forward and the problem was permitted to drift. In the meantime, the situation grew more and more intolerable because the, the Diem regime was conducting a, a vendetta against the, the ah Buddhists. Ah.

Bonzes were immolating themselves. The Nhus were we knew plotting against us. The situation was quite intolerable. And, ah, President Kennedy made this clear in a, a series of statements that he made. But, at the end of the road, I don't think that ah that it was an American initiative in any sense. The generals finally got together and got some courage and did what they thought was necessary to be done. And I regard it as a purely indigenous ah ah Vietnamese affair.

Let's go on to the Johnson administration. (clears throat) After Kennedy's assassination, and before the funeral, Johnson met with some of his advisers and the decision was made to stand firm on Vietnam. Did you, were you involved in that? Did you express any doubts at that time?

When was this?

Just at the end of 1963, or you could even go into the period of early '64.

Ah. I can't tell you exactly. I don't remember.

All right. Ah. Do you, let's go on to early '64 when McNamara made his trip to Saigon it was in March and it was a NSAM issued, number 228, or 288, which you may not remember. Did you begin to sense a deepening of the commitment at...

Well, I was, I was very much...

Excuse me... How, how did you feel about it?

During the early part of 1963 it was ah '64. During the early part of 1964 it became clear that ah we were getting more and more engaged in Vietnam. I was deeply concerned about it.

In part because I had had the experience of working with the French ah at a time when they were undergoing their agonies in Dien Bien Phu and the whole problems that they were having in Vietnam. I was convinced that the United States could never win given the fact that this was a peripheral to our fundamental interests but was vital to the interest of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong and that ah there was no serious motivation in the south. That ah it was a very flabby coterie of peoples which uh didn't ah constitute a government in any real sense. Ah. And, that, therefore...

Excuse me. We should change reels. It's getting a little bit...

Maybe you could pick up that point about the sense of drifting in in early '64.

President Johnson came to power on the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963. His immediate concern was to secure the passage of the legislation that ah Kennedy had had introduced which was then badly stalled in the Congress.

He ah, as a result, I don't think he paid a great deal of attention to Vietnam. I certainly didn't because I ah was preoccupied with many other things which seemed to me of much greater importance and besides uh Secretary Rusk had devoted a good deal of his career to that part of the world and I was quite inclined to, to let him uh deal with it, although I am sure that during that period and one meeting after another I made clear my my concern that we were getting increasingly involved. But it was really a period of drift.

Could you describe (clears throat) the covert raids that were being carried on by the South Vietnamese against the North and the, at the same time that the US patrols were in the Gul-Gulf of Tonkin? Eh. What was your attitude? Did you oppose supporting these raids and did you think they were provocative?

I didn't think, oh you, during the, beginning I think in about March of 1964 there was a series of harassments ah which went under the title of 34A Raids, which was mostly small boat raids against ah various targets in ah in North Vietnam. Ah. I wasn't very much in, concerned with them. Ah. They seemed to me to be ah ineffectual.

I didn't think much would come of it, but ah again it it didn't occur to me that they were ah necessarily dangerous. They were largely disguised as South Vietnamese affairs, although it was clear that we were involved. Of course, when the Gulf of Tonkin incidents came along, I think it's quite likely that the North Vietnamese ah thought that the so called DESOTO patrols, the sending of the destroyers up the Gulf of Tonkin were a part of the raids and that this may have been their reason for attacking the, the two sets of attacks on American destroyers if, indeed, they occurred.

The President said that those attacks were, were "unprovoked aggressions." Do you think that was a fair assessment?

Well, I, I think it's very hard to know, whether ah they ah there was that confusion in the North. I suspect that there was. Ah. I don't know what the, what the records show since then, but ah at the time, there was great doubt that ah existed even in the top quarters of the government.

I'm sorry. Just have to change film. Maybe we could just .

Okay, could you pick up there where you started talking about that you thought the DESOTO patrols themselves were provocative. Could you pick up...?

Then, when did they begin? Do you remember— March, something like that?

Well, some time let's say in the spring...

In the spring of, of 1964 ah the United States began the DESOTO patrols which uh involved sending a destroyer or later two destroyers up the Gulf of Tonkin uh. The only purpose that they had really was, was in my, as I saw it at the time a, a purpose of inciting attack. I don't think that there, the purpose that was used to justify them, of ah taking soundings of the water and doing a lot of those things ah were necessary at all. They could have been done at, with much less risk.

There was also the feeling that this was showing the flag and showing that the United States was a presence there and that ah ah this might have I think some intimidating effect on ah the North. Ah. I was concerned about these patrols. I thought they were an unnecessary risk of of life ah ah that really couldn't be justified. The first attack then occurred. Ah. Whether the North Vietnamese thought that this was a part of the 34A Raids and, therefore, ah, did feel that ah, that ah, there was some menace from these patrols or not I have, I have no judgment. Ah.

As to the second attack, I think there was real concern as to whether it actually, real doubt. Certainly ah as President Johnson said to me ah, "I don't think that ah they ever did attack the second time." He said, "I think those dumb sailors were just shooting at one another or shooting at flying fish. To, I think those dumb sailors were just shooting at flying fish."

Could you say that again. We are...

Yeah. President Johnson ah ah with respect to the second attack President Johnson once said to me ah I don't think that ah that ah there ever was really an attack. He said "I think those dumb sailors were just shooting at flying fish."

When you said earlier that you (clears throat) you thought that the the the destroyers were there to to incite an attack, what would have been the purpose of that?

There was a good deal of desire at that time to begin bombing. But, I think uh that, that ah 34A Raids, as well as the exposure of the Tonkin Gulf, of the exposure, of destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf, was ah at least ah for many people involved ah a ah a means of ah inciting some kind of reaction from the North which might serve as a basis for moving toward a bombing program.

Pursue that. Why the interest in bombing? Was it to co-opt Goldwater?

No, I think the interest in bombing was simply the feeling that we were getting nowhere in the South and that ah we had to begin some kind of an attack against the North itself. There was a good deal of agitation in the top ah ranks to ah to begin to to try to ah try to put pressure on the on the North as the as the real source of the Viet Cong activity and ah we had various scenarios laid out for bombing programs which might achieve this.

So, there was, many people were anxious to get started with some kind of bombing and ah with the general tacit assumption that in the first instance it would be tit for tat, that is, purely retaliatory bombing, but that that could be developed into a a systematic campaign.

Now, in Oc—October (clears throat) you argued against graduated pressure against the North and there was that memo that you sent to McNamara, Rusk and Bundy, that, can you recall that?

Well, yes. In October 5 of, well, let me say that once the Tonkin Gulf resolution had been passed I was deeply alarmed. It seemed to me that this gave a complete laissez-passer to the President to do anything that he wanted and that the pressures were going to force him into the kind of escalation which I thought would would commit us deeply in Vietnam and I was totally opposed to that, cause I was convinced from the beginning that it was a war we could never win.

So, I began late at night to put together a memorandum which turned out to be a document of 70 or 75 pages, single space, and I sent it to Rusk and McNamara and Bundy ah and they reacted with the suggestion that we sit down and discuss it in detail. The memorandum challenged every assumption of our Vietnam policy with the implication that ah that we we were pursuing a an ignis fatuus. Ah. That we'd better call back and look it over and see if we could find a way out.

Well, we met one Saturday afternoon and ah I was very discouraged because it seemed to me that I was making no progress with my colleagues, that they were convinced that we had to go forward and that the idea of discussing the memorandum on a point by point basis ah ah didn't seem very, very practical in view of their attitude.

Now, (clears throat) Lyndon Johnson saw the memo in January '65. Do you remember what his reaction was?

Well, I didn't send it to him immediate. I did not send the memorandum to President Johnson immediately because he was engaged in in his political campaign at that time. I thought it was very, very ah very ill advised ah to try to ah focus his attention on something when his larger attention was obviously on domestic politics. Ah.

I left it really to my three colleagues as to whether they wanted to show the President. Ah. They didn't do it. Ah. If I had asked them to I'm, I have no doubts that they they would have shown it to the President. It was simply my own decision not to do it at that time, but ah after the escalation began and become a more serious affair then I thought it was time for the President to look at it.

In the meantime, I had, I had done a number of things to prepare that in the way of other memoranda to the President and dissent on one proposal after another for escalation. So, I gave it ah to Bill to Bill Moyers who came over the lunch and ah he showed it to the President and the President called me very disturbed. He said "I've read this. Why haven't I seen it before?" And, I said, well, I didn't ah ah give it to you before because ah I had discussed it with my colleagues. I didn't think the timing was right. He said, "We must have a discussion on it immediately and will take all day, if necessary."

So, we did discuss it. You know, a very long session and ah the President gave me full opportunity to make my, my case, which I did to the best of my ability. Ah. But, there was opposition from the, everyone else and I was alone on this and ah while I think the President was shaken by it, he was not fully persuaded that there was any way out that he could conceive that would be acceptable to him. Ah.

That was the beginning then of a whole series of memoranda in April and June and so on that I gave the President. Each ah ah insisting that ah we find a way to extricate ourselves making it clear that ah we were in a position which was tactically impossible, that we could not win a war, that white men couldn't win a war against ah ah Orientals in a Asian jungle, particularly when we didn't have the the intelligence cooperation on the part of the local inhabitants who by and large would would tip off the Viet Cong but would not tip off off us off.

And, ah, that, therefore, we should find the ways and means to cut our losses and get out and I had a whole series of proposals by which we might achieve this. Ah. This was an argument that continued clear on until June when the decision was made to commit troops and here again I fought very hard against this in various memoranda which I gave the President and ah I ah I didn't, I didn't succeed in in stopping the the movement, although I think I may have slowed it down to some extent.

But, ah, what I fell back on was telling the President that as the escalation proceeded he would more and more lose control of the situation because ah each move would inspire another move on the other side and we were in effect riding a tiger. I used Emerson's uh famous phrase that things were in the saddle and ah were riding mankind and that ah events were getting the saddle here and were taking over and that the President didn't dare put himself in the position where he didn't control and that, therefore, we should concentrate on finding a tactical extrication.

Can we go back for a moment and, how did you feel, even you're, the research that you did on the effectiveness of the bombing in the Second World War, how did you apply that to the bombing of North Vietnam?

Well, it certainly conditioned my own ah, the question ah I had been a director of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey at the, toward the end of the Second World War and we'd made a detailed study of the effects of strategic bombing on, uh not only the German war economy but on the psychology of the of the German people.

I was convinced that ah we were not going to achieve our will by bombing the North, that ah, in the first place ah it was fairly ah, primitive industrial society and that they they weren't the kind of targets that were ah were adapted for strategic bombing. And, secondly, I was convinced that ah we would never break the will of a determined people by, simply by bombing, and, in fact, we would probably tend to unite them more than ever.

Let me go on to the...

I'm sorry. I want to. Pick it up again. Take...

By January, 1965, uh, it seemed to me that the that the escalation was ah going forward very rapidly. That ah where things were beginning to get out of hand. I had by that time made ah ah so many speeches against ah particular escalatory steps that I thought the President was well prepared for the memorandum that I had written in October and it was time for him to see it.

The, he had been re-elected, and ah the the inauguration had taken place and it was time for him to look at it. So, I, therefore, ah arranged through Bill Moyers for the President to see the memorandum and ah the President called me immediately afterwards and said "Why haven't I seen this before," ah and I said "Well I'd, it hadn't, you had been involved in the campaign and I thought it wasn't ah ah appropriate time but that this represented my settled views and I hoped that he would consider it carefully," and he said, "Well, of course, we must have a meeting and if, even if it takes all day, let's argue this out because this is, this is very important."

So, we did have a meeting, in which ah ah Bundy, Rusk, McNamara, I think ah John McKohn and perhaps one or two other people were all present. And I, the President asked me to explain my views which I did at very considerable length. He showed a total familiarity with the memorandum even asking me well, on page eighteen, you make this point and on page twenty-one you make this. How do you justify that and so on? And ah then I, everyone present ah immediately moved in to attack me or to attack the memorandum, particularly ah ah McNamara and, and Rusk, who felt that I was completely aha ah misguided in the views that I was expressing.

Nevertheless, it was clear that ah certainly on the part of of Secretary Rusk that he had no objections whatever to my urging my own views. In fact, he made it quite clear to, very early on, that the President was as much entitled to my views as to his even though we were in fundamental disagreement on the whole Southeast Asian issue. Ah.

And, let me say also for the be, to clear up some question as there is none as ah Johnson was always extremely hospitable to the expression of my own views. It was on a number of occasions after we'd had these long sessions after I'd written one memorandum or another and ah ah dema—insisting that we extricate ourselves from Vietnam and and get out of a of a deteriorating situation ah he would ah put his hand on my shoulder and say George, I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for disagreeing with me. So that there was never a question of anyone trying to prevent my having my day in court and I was clearly listened to you and I have no complaints whatever on that score.

Did you ever feel in respect to that question that you were being kind of co-opted as the house dissenter and that, in a sense, strengthened his escalation?

Well, it wasn't that, but ah I wasn't being co-opted as the house dissenter. Ah. There was a protective device that the President himself ah ah conceived of and that was that ah ah he was very much afraid that word would get out that there was serious dissent within the house so he said I'm going to treat you as as the devil's advocate, so if any question arises, it's ah it's simply that you're being the devil's advocate, and we understood this between us.

He understood at the same time that my, my concerns were, were very deeply felt and I have no question whatever that I shook him very badly on several of his convictions with regard to the war, and I think I did slow down the escalation. I didn't stop it.

Were there any others that you might say were part of your group of of ah...

Not, not, not in a, in a position where they could discuss it with the President or really make their views felt independently, they didn't help. And even I was under some disadvantage because I was the deputy secretary and not the secretary himself.

First of all you've said that you dissented but give us in a in a brief, a brief statement on some substance of your dissent. Why you dissented? In, back in January of ‘7...?

Well, my, my dissent from the beginning was simply that I did not think that ah American interests were deeply involved in in what happened in Vietnam, that this was essentially a a civil conflict, a ah an internal revolt, if you will, or an internal internecine war. Ah. I did not accept the idea that it ah the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong were the surrogates of the great communist powers. This seemed to me to to ah ah suggest a a total misconception.

Ah, finally, I was convinced we could not win. I had watched the French experience at first hand and I had heard the French say all the same things that we were saying and make all the same mistakes that we were making and I saw us simply recapitulating the French experience which it could necessarily lead to a tragic end.

Let me go on to this point that you've already made the point that you thought the bombing ah was not going to be effective in the North. What kind of reaction, why do you think the President, con—continued or at least started the bombing? What was his reaction to your advice in that matter?

The pre—the ah President went forward with the bombing in part because he was getting advice that was contrary to mine, particularly from Walt Rostow who was strongly urging him that ah bombing would be effective. From ah Maxwell Taylor who had conceived the idea of the gradually moving the bombing line north ah ah with ah and therefore, increasing the pressure.

But I think one of the reasons the President was willing to go forward with the bombing was because it involved a limited commitment of American lives. A risk to American lives far less ah ah possibility of American casualties through bombing than than through any ground action. So, he ah he saw this as a kind of minimum way to ah where we might bring pressure on the opposition. Minimum risk way.

Let's go on now to the Pleiku raid which is February, 1965, and at that stage, as you recall, Mac Bundy was out there and telephoned back and there was a decision to retaliate ah, now there's no record that you dissented from that decision ah unless we're wrong?

What uh, the ah, during the latter part of of 19 ah ah 64, there were a number of incidents where people around the President were urging him to use these incidents as a basis for a beginning ah a bombing offensive and initially through tit for tat or retaliatory raids. There was one, indeed, that occurred just at Christmas. The President was not going to pre—embark on a bombing campaign on Christmas which contrasted rather sharply, you may recall, with Nixon's attitude some years later. Ah.

But the ah the President was very reluctant to start bombing, but he was under very great pressures from the people around him to to begin bombing, and when the Pleiku incident occurred, uh, the President's views were reinforced because of the rather accidental circumstance that Mac Bundy was in Saigon and ah he called up uh in very great anguish because he's a very compassionate man. He'd been at the hospital, he'd been visiting the Americans who had been wounded in this assault and that created a tone where we couldn't help but go forward.

My own feeling was that I would get nowhere in trying to stop it. Forces had been building up. I had been fighting an action as best I could I could. Ah. There was no point in trying to stop it, but what I did do was to say it's, it's nonsense to begin bombing while Kosygin is in Hanoi because he was visiting Hanoi at that time, and in that I might say I was joined by Vice President Humphrey who was in, in that meeting, and ah we made this point very strongly. Ah. McNamara's response to me was ah well, you're just trying to stop the bombing altogether, which, of course, was right, because I didn't want to start it at all.

So, there's no su—such thing as a good time. We can't, if you'd, if we're held up by this, why you'll find something to hold us up, so we've got to go forward. So, we went forward. I think it was very foolish to do at that point because ah we simply created a doubt in the Soviets' mind as to whether this was deliberately aimed at them or, and it also it enabled the North Vietnamese to press the Soviets harder for help on the ground that we were bombing while Kosygin was there.

Do you know what Kosygin was doing there?

I don't recall what at that time, no.

How crucial a turning point then do you think Pleiku was?

Well, Pleiku started bombing. Once you get it, infected with a virus, it tends to metastasize or spread. It's a cancer that metastasizes, it's a virus that spreads.

I'm sorry, can you do it again?

Once you get infected with a virus it tends to invade the whole body politic.

Now Taylor who was ambassador out there had reservations about committing ground troops, especially in the Danang perimeter. When the ground troops were committed in uh, in the spring of '65, did you see that as a one shot operation just to guard the perimeter of the air base, or did you see, how did other people see it or did you see the beginning of a troop...?

What was perfectly apparent during this whole period, parti—sim—particularly following the, the early months of 1965 is that ah the escalation was going forward, the momentum was accelerating, we were reaching the point where with the failure of one tactic, we would ah move toward another, which was of greater risk and greater cost, and that ah I, I had a feeling that in trying to stop it I was in effect swimming up Niagara Falls.

That this was ah a, a very big force that was building up. Ah. Bureaucratic momentum. And that ah, ah, if we started the tit for tat bombing, we would certainly move to a systematic bombing campaign. There was no doubt in my mind on this course. And, that as the bombing failed, we would move toward the commitment of forces, and this was the point I kept trying to make to the President. Things are getting out of control because one kind of escalation is leading to another.

Do you recall your memorandum that you sent to the President ah on July 1st?

Well, I recall a great number of memoranda that I wrote...

I wanted you to talk about the...

But, uh, I think in, in a, during the, the first six months ah of ah 1965 I sent a series of memoranda to the President urging ah extrication.

Uh, excuse me.

Beginning in November of '64, the the mood became grimmer and grimmer largely as a result of the failures that were occurring in Vietnam on the part of the of the South Vietnamese forces and ah the frustration that was settling in. The feeling that ah we were going to have to do more and more if ah we were going to have any success. I saw this as a mounting momentum. Meantime, a great deal of planning was going forward for the use of, of an air offensive for ultimate contribution of ground forces. Ah. While I was doing a great many other things at the time, I was, I was aware of all of this and I was deeply concerned about it and I was involved in a great many of the discussions. In fact I think practically all of the significant discussions with the President. Ah.

So that ah to me it seemed to me that we've, we had set something in motion that was extremely dangerous, and which we might not be able to to control unless there was a a very major surgical decision made by the President which I doubted very much that he would be prepared to make it because he would have to make it against the advice of all of his top command with the, with one exception, and as I say, I was somewhat junior because I was only a deputy rather than a, than a secretary.

So I was getting very ah very ah worried about this situation because I saw it dominating more and more of the of the concerns of the administration and ah taking more and more of the time that I thought ought to be devoted to much more important affairs. Ah.

During this period in the latter part of 1964 and the early part of 1965, ah, the mood was getting grimmer, and I saw us moving more and more toward ah what I thought was a disastrous course of escalation.

I ah, in the arguments that I was making to the President, which were reinforced ah in practically every case in long and I thought well reasoned memoranda, documented memoranda, uh I kept recalling the French experience, that the French had been through exactly the the same mood in this, were, had made the same kind of efforts that we were making and had expressed the same views and they'd used the same body counts and the same kill ratios that we were using to explain and justify their position and that they were always ah in a ah position where this particular tactic has not succeeded but tomorrow we have a new tactic and that will succeed and this was what we were doing constantly, and we were simply repeating an, an experience which had lead to tragedy on the part of France and would lead to tragedy on our part, that we could commit any number of forces to the field. And, I mentioned, I think the figure of a half million, but that ah we would ah much more likely suffer a humiliation than to to gain the objectives we were seeking.

Now, if I could refer to one tel—or one memo, you expressed your apprehensions but you also added that, if the decision is to go ahead, this is in July, I'm committed.

Yeah.

Could you explain why you still stayed in there, hung in there?

In ah the kind of counteroffensive that I was waging, a rear guard action so to speak, I had to concern myself with my own tactics. The one thing that was perfectly clear it would never be accepted and the President would ah would prejudice my position very greatly with the President, and therefore, the authority of my arguments was that if I tried to re-open decisions that had already been made.

So, once the decision was made after I had bloodied my head in trying to to prevent it, then I would always say to the President, all right, you've made this decision. I am not asking that it be re-opened. I support it, but now where are we? This was the necessary ah tactic, ah if I were to succeed at all.

Did it ever occur to you just to stand up and quit and say why?

Of course, but ah in the first place, yes. The question of resignation has ah has risen ah on and many people have asked me why I didn't quit at the time and the answer was was very clear in my own mind. I was the only voice that was ah sounding any note of alarm, that the others seemed to me to be going full speed forward, that I could serve a useful purpose here, that this was not like a parliamentary system in which ah a member of the government is a man who has ah ah political clout of his own and that his resignation becomes a a a major national issue. If I had resigned the present White House would simply have passed word out that they were about to fire me anyway for incompetence and it would have been a one day wonder and I would have so achieved nothing.

Okay. First of all, if you could just repeat (beep) back thing. Okay.

I then, in explaining to the President the concern that I felt about a mounting escalation, I said to him, you know, once on the tiger's back, we can't pick the the time to dismount. You're going to lose control of this situation and this could be very serious. Now, I think it's well to understand also, the the evolution of of the reasoning behind the war. It began, I think, with a very real concern on the part of a number of people. Ah. That the domino theory had validity. If Southwe—east Asia fell, then ah, the, or if Vietnam fell, then the whole of Southeast Asia would be ah menaced. That ah gradually dissipated with greater experience.

I think people came off that ah toward the latter part of 1965. As early as that there was only one reason why anyone seriously concerned justif, tried to justify the war and that was on the ground we would lose prestige if we tried to get out. I gave the President several studies which I had made which indicated in my mind that we were going to, that we were losing far more prestige by staying in the war, and that we could find ways and means to extricate ourselves with a minimal loss of prestige, that we had ah based the word ah ah our reputation in much too general terms. That ah ah our reputation as a nation consisted of many things. Not the least of which was that we had some sense of perspective and, therefore, had some judgment.

While many of our allied countries were beginning to think that we had, we were out of our minds to pursue such a futile war. Furthermore, we had a sense of compassion and to go on endlessly killing ah Vietnamese ah in a losing effort and and wasting our own lives, the lives of our own people seemed to me to be silly and was so con, conceived of and regarded by nations around the world. So that we weren't defending our prestige by continuing the fight. We were wasting our prestige.

Did you think Lyndon Johnson perceived this and he was...?

He was concerned about it, but I don't th, he was not convinced because he didn't know how to get out. We had no doctrine of es—ex—extrication. We had a doctrine of escalation and that was all we had and my quarrel with my colleagues was very largely that they would only ask one question, which was how? How can we ah prevail? They would never ask the question why? It would seem to me to be the significant question.

Let's go on now the (clears throat) of sixty, late '67. Now in one respect you were a member of this group of so called wise men.

Yeah.

And, you remember that they had one meeting ah in November of '67 in which they seemed (clears throat) still to be supporting the war. How did you, do you recall that meeting and your own position there?

Yes. We had a meeting ah the President called together what was variously, popularly regarded as the seniors statesmen or the wise men or as some rather derisively said, the the usual suspects and it consisted of those of us who had had experience in the government, and I was a member of of of that group on two occasions. Particularly, one was in November of 19 ah ah 67, and at that point ah there was ah a I think ah a unanimous vote save for my own dissent that we had to go forward with the war and that we could win it and so on and I ah recall saying to Dean Acheson and ah I think Jack McCloy and someone else who were ah making these arguments that ah you remind me of a lot of old buzzards sitting on the fence sending the young men out to die. Ah.

Why don't you really face up to the realities? Ah. But I got, it was a very discouraging melting from my point of view. Nothing came out of it. Then again, after the Tet Offensive, the, I think, largely at the instigation of Clark Clifford who, during this period, even before he had become secretary of defense that had joined very much on my side in at least one meeting that we had with the President, ah, in opposing the continuation of the war and insisting that we find ways and means to get out.

I think Clifford saw a reconvening of this group after the Tet Offensive as something that might be helpful to him and and in changing the President's mind. So, we met ah one evening ah with the Secretary of State ah and had a briefing that ah by three ah ah gentlemen, one of whom was ah, I think, Philip Habib; one of whom was a general and a representative of the CIA talked about the ah, the ah stability or the lack of stability of the situation, and the briefings were extremely grim in that they said it would take five to ten years to win the war and this had a profound effect on my colleagues.

So, the next morning ah there was a very changed view on the part of of this group, and the group, not unanimously by any means, but to ah a very large extent, then recommended to the President that we find a way out.

Could you (clears throat) see if you could recall or capsulize a bit the, the impact of the Tet Offensive on you and on other members of the group of wise men?

Well, as far as I was concerned, the Tet Offensive simply confirmed what ah I had ah believed all along, and that was that the that the North Vietnamese had ah had a very great strength and were prepared to to take enormous risks and pay enormous costs and ah the fact that they co—could hold a city like Tet for a substantial period of time at that uh...

...city like...

Hm? What did I say?

You said "a city like Tet"...mean a city like Saigon or Hue.

If you could just repeat that.

Well, I was ah, I was not at all surprised at the outcome of the Tet Offensive because it, I had all the time believed that the North Vietnamese had, not only had great strength, but were prepared to risk it, were prepared to pay very high cost. The fact that they could hold a city such as Hue which was the second largest city in in ah South Vietnam as long as they did ah must necessarily demonstrate, not only the efficacy of their, their ah own, own forces, and their willingness to commit them, but showed them fundamental weakness on our side.

At the end of '65 we had almost 200,000 troops over there. What was the mood, what was your own feeling at the time? Where did you think we were going?

Well, I thought we were going to a greater and greater escalation at the end of 1965. We, we had 200,000 troops but there, it was perfectly clear that they were not going to succeed and that we were, ah, the way we were going, we were going to commit more and more troops, and ah, this seemed to me to be madness, but ah there was nothing I could do about it.

I, I kept a running argument against any further escalation, but out of sheer frustration and the feeling that somehow we couldn't go back, that ah we kept increasing our commitments constantly. By that time, there were beginning to be doubts but ah on the part of many people, but ah while they had doubts, they were unwilling to face the logic of the situation, that we couldn't win and that, therefore, we had better extricate ourselves.

What about all the negotiating ploys?

Well, there really wasn't any, any negotiation that ah that went on or any serious negotiation tenders that were put forward. There was a great confusion which existed on the part of many of my colleagues. Ah. That negotiation consisted of opening a great many possible channels of communication. Negotiation was, wasn't that, because they saw opening channels of communications so that the North Vietnamese could capitulate. Nothing was ever suggested to the North Vietnamese that we were willing to, to make concessions and that what basically we were trying to do was to get out of a, of a messy situation, which was the only basis on which a negotiation could have occurred.

In one particular case, in the Johns Hopkins speech that Lyndon Johnson made in April 1965 when he talked about unconditional discussions how did you feel about that?

Well, again, I, didn't I, I thought that, you know, this is a little progress, but I, on the, when Johnson proposed in the Johns Hopkins speech that he would ah begin talks on the basis of ah, ah, of no conditions, ah this seemed to me to be a little progress in thinking but it seemed to me he had to go very much farther than that, and we had plenty of of clandestine channels. We could have put forward feelers, if we had had anything we per, proposed, but we weren't pre—there was no move to negotiate.

There was a feeling that we had to win ah and that nothing short of of of winning was, was enough, and therefore, there was no serious possibility of, of negotiating, because (sigh) again, Johnson's mood was ah expressed in a very simple terminology. "I won't be the first American president to lose a war," which Nixon picked up as his own. (coughs) Well, this was, not only historically uh, uh dubious, but it was the kind of mood where he identified his won prestige and his own role in history ah in a way which ah made serious compromise impossible, it seemed to me.

What kind of person was Lyndon Johnson?

Ah, he was a man of enormous complexity. Lyndon Johnson was a man of enormous complexity, a fascinating man. A man of fantastic abilities (coughs) but he was seriously inhibited. First, by his (swallows) ah great sense of inferiority with regard to his own education and the feeling that he was surrounded by a constellation of ah wisdom which uh he inherited from Kennedy, and that if all these people felt that way, who was he to ah, to hold a contrary view. I think he was enormously troubled by the war. I think he wanted out.

Clear your throat and let's do that again.

Would you like some water?

Yes, if you got some handy. (coughing)

Lyndon Johnson was (voices in background). Lyndon Johnson was more sympathetic to me than any one in his entourage because I think he had very serious doubts about the war, and as the war went on, he, they grew greater and greater. So, he was always very kind to me. He was, seemed to welcome the ah, the negative advice that I was giving him. Ah. But, he didn't know how to get out. The fault, the fact of extrication was equivalent in his mind with failure, and he kept saying I won't be the first American president to lose a war.

Well, I'm not sure that was historically accurate in view of the War of 1812 and some other incidents in American history. But, it did ah disclose his own state of mind which I highly personal view of what was going on, a feeling that ah, ah he ah should reflect the Alamo spirit, ah never give up. Ah. And a sense that ah he ah there was no way he could get out and save his own reputation not al, let alone the reputation of the United States. In this, he was greatly reinforced by everyone around him with the exception of myself. He was getting a very consistent, rather strongly, ah, stated advice from ah my colleagues.

Ah. Just one, one more point. I wish you'd go back and say something about, more about him personally. Repeat the, about how he felt a little bit. A sense of inferiority?

Johnson was ah...(voices in background)

Still rolling.

That may go on for a long time.

Helicopter. Helicopter and sea plane.

Getting back to this thing Johnson's personality?

Johnson was a very strong man but with some weaknesses and one of them was the fact that he was rather intimidated by the, the ah, apparent brilliance of the people around him. He suffered from a sense of inferiority in regard to his own educational background. I think in the West Texas Teachers College or something of that sort. He saw this group of intellectuals, as he called them, with whom he was surrounded, as men of, of enormous wisdom, and if they were taking the position that they took that the war had to go forward, ah he found it very hard to, to disregard that advice.

On the other hand, as far as I was concerned, I think he respected me. We had a very warm personal relationship and ah he seemed to, to welcome the fact that I was speaking very frankly and ah ah I shook him I think very badly. And I worried him, and I think, that I to some extent, slowed the escalation down. Ah. I found him the most sympathetic of all of the people in the entourage. He was the one who seemed to take my cautionary views more seriously. He was the one who seemed to be probing more and more deeply for a way out, but he could never reconcile extrication with his personal commitment that ah he would not be the first president to lose a war.

Was he dumb?

He was a brilliant man. Johnson was, I think, a man of great intellectual bril—brilliance. A man of ah of a very quick grasp of situations. Ah. Very strong. On a person to person basis, uh, extremely persuasive and you felt the force of the man always. He was a he was a strong man. There was no doubt.

Was there any particular suspicion of you because you were known to have had close ties with the French?

No, no. I think that I never had any intimation that ah that he thought that I, my judgment had been warped by my relations with the French. There was a tendency to disregard the French experience, which I thought was a great mistake simply, and ah, ah, a kind of mark of arrogance that we were to much better than the French, we didn't have to pay any attention to the French, but at one point, he did ask me to go talk with General de Gaulle, which, and ah, which I did, and I brought back the general's message that this was hopeless, which was something I agreed with, although obviously I couldn't say it to the general.

What was his rea—Lyndon Johnson's reaction to that?

Well, he, he, he Lyndon Johnson ah respected de Gaulle. And I had hoped that de Gaulle's advice would have some effect on him, but it didn't have any apparent effect.

In, in, in, in June, Sometime in June of January of '64 de Gaulle was advocating neutralization. Can you tell us about, comment on that, or how Johnson saw that?

Oh. Ah. In ah de Gaulle's own recipe was that we try to work out the the neutralization of Vietnam. Ah. And, he offered ah the good officers of the French government to try to help bring it about. This was dismissed ah out of hand by ah all of my colleagues and by the President. This wasn't what we were interested in. We, we didn't ah think that that would work quite frankly and that it would simply...

When I say we, my, the views of my colleagues would extend the power and authority of the ah communists powers. Ah. I didn't think so. I thought this was an indigenous revolution in which the, the North Vietnamese ah were taking help from the Soviets and taking help from ah Chinese but ah weren't at all representing the interests of those countries and were were actually very antipathetic towards them.

Can I ask you one retrospective question? If you looked back now, what effect do you think Vietnam has had on our (clears throat) on the United States, both domestically and in foreign policy?

I think Vietnam was the probably the greatest single error that America has made in its national history. I, that sounds like an overstatement, but I don't think it is. It demoralized our society. It ah ah for a whole generation ah there will be a mark left because they went through a period where the country was being torn apart. It ah created a vision to the world that ah we were of doubtful judgment to make this kind of a commitment to something which, as the world thought, was so clearly...

Excuse me.

Any time.

Go ahead.

Uh pick it up on the impact on foreign policy. American position in the world? The impact of Vietnam...

Vietnam had, not only disastrous effects on, on the social fabric and social cohesion of America, but it ah, I think it ah set us back a very long way so far as foreign policy was concerned rather than enhancing our reputation which seemed to be the, the concern of my colleagues. I think it was disastrous because it gave the impression that the United States was reckless.

The brutal bombing of Vietnam, particularly that occurred under the Nixon administration, ah, gave the impression that we were arrogant and, and ah had a disdain for the life of the local people, the indigenous people in the areas ah particularly in the Third World where we would consent, and that ah America's reputation as being a wise, powerful nation was enormously hurt by all of this. Ah.

This, of course, was followed by Watergate so we had ah twin disasters, but I think that ah Vietnam was the, will go down in history as ah a really a disastrous point in American history. A disastrous point in American history. A disastrous set of events that really ah ah did more than anything up to that point to diminish the the reputation of the United States for wisdom and compassion, for generosity and understanding and all the things that we had tried to stand for. And, ah, it'll be a long time overcoming that.

Now, in addition, it has created inhibitions on the use of American power which, again, ah because they tend to be exaggerated, have ah ah are creating current problems for us. It tended us, contributed again to the unwillingness of Americans to serve in the armed forces, which I think we’re suffering from now, and in in the deplorable state of our so called volunteer army. Ah. I can’t think of any event that had ah a worse set of series and set of consequences than the Vietnamese war.

I've got one more. Completely unrelated question, but Nguyen Khanh told us that the (you rolling?) (ya) the ah first Tonkin incident that the South Vietnamese 34A patrol boat deliberately circled back behind the Maddox and deliberately drew the North Vietnamese towards us? Any?

I don't know anything about that. Don't know anything about that.

Marilyn...

Okay.

Okay?

Thank you very much. Very good. This is relatively quiet room talk for George Ball interview.